I'm Where?
by Contia Mirian
Summary: when one of the twin heirs of valdemar gets sent on an itsy bitsy diplomatic mission, she winds up somewhere she never expected. Welcome to Tortall, watch the last step, it's a dozy.
1. of mage storms and bossy Companions

Yes I know that they aren't on the same planet I took a very small bit of artistic license.

Disclaimer: nothing belongs to Tortall and its residents belong to Tamora Pierce and Valdemar and its residents belong to Mercedes Lackey. I am making no profit etc. etc.

Lyra lay as still as possible in the wildly swinging hammock. She was just out of her grays, and as one of the heirs to Valdemar's throne was supposed to be headed to treaty negotiation with a land to the east of the Eastern Empire. As soon as her ship had left the harbor she had immediately decided she did not like sailing, and as a result had spent much of her time below decks clinging to Haran, her companion, and desperately trying not to throw up. She only occasionally succeeded and she was something of a source of entertainment to the crew. Fynius, a Kyree historian accompanying them to the negotiations to add them to the histories, and as sort of a bodyguard, was every bit as ill as Lyra was.

Not five minutes after the ship had passed beyond the range that she could comfortably communicate to Kris the mother of all storms suddenly appeared, and she could practically taste the magic winding through it. Someone was trying to kill her and she was too sick to do anything about it. And to far away to tell even her twin what was happening.

With a swift movement Haran lunged to his feet. :_ Chosen, we have trouble, I know you are feeling sick but it is absolutely imperative that you tack me up, pack up your things and put a floating spell on us and Fynius. Now:_

"There's no such thing as a floating spell. And why is it so important to do this now?" Lyra knew she was whining, but she was absolutely miserable.

:_ Then invent one, this ship won't take this beating for much longer heart sister, and drowning is not an option. : _He paused for a second :_Water might also be useful, and perhaps a small container of supplies.:_

Lyra hauled herself carefully to her feet and, with a groan, suppressed a fresh wave of nausea. With one hand on the wall she staggered to her possession and threw the essentials, her weapons, her various badges of office, and a book that Kris had given her shortly before her departure, into a pair of saddle bags, threw Haran's saddle onto his back, hooked the bags to the back of it, hooked her sword to it's hook on his tack and staggered out to the main hold. She staggered back and added Haran's hackamore to the tack he was wearing, and then staggered back into the hold, now cursing with feeling. She snagged an emergency food pack tossed it onto a barrel of fresh water, double checked to make certain that Fynius and Haran were with her and carefully surrounded them, and her scavenged supplies, with several layers of carefully shaped shields, ones that would protect them from physical dangers, and if she'd shaped them right keep them afloat, probably. Just to be safe she summoned several water elementals as well. Using them like little life preservers. She paused wondering at how easy it had been. Since the mage storms, magic had been severely reduced. _: Har, The mage storms were all over the planet weren't they? Or were they just on our continent:_

_:I had thought they were everywhere, but now I begin to wonder, the magic here is hardly disrupted at all.: _Haran paused thoughtfully:_Perhaps they were just on our continent.:_

By this time Lyra had her spells firmly anchored to herself her companions and her supplies, which amounted to about a weeks worth of water and half that of food. And not a moment to soon as soon as Haran finished "continent" Lyra became aware of a sudden rise of the water level about her feet. And then the wall gave in and she knew nothing more for sometime.


	2. Of strangers and beaches

Alan, son of Alanna, the Lioness, and George, Baron of pirates swoop, was completely bored, he had recently became a knight, and the kingdom was completely at peace, so there was little call for his abilities. To break the tedium of court life he had returned to his home, pirates swoop. It hadn't worked things were still tedious, and so he had decided to take a walk along the beach.  
He was walking along staring at his feet and occasionally kicking at the sand when something white caught his attention. It was a horse, standing over something he couldn't quite make out and nudging it with its nose. The horses blue saddle was askew, and had a pair of loaded saddle bags and a sword clipped to them.  
Finally something different, he walked towards the horse, and stopped when he was close enough to see what it was nudging, or rather, who. The woman had light brown hair streaked with silver, she was clearly unconscious, and clearly in need of a healer. One arm twisted at an angle that wasn't natural and she had numerous cuts, both recent and older.  
The horse's head came up suddenly and it turned to stare at him, and then, if he hadn't know better he would have sworn the horse moved to protect the woman from him. He froze, watching the horse watch him. It seemed to decide after a minute or so of this that he wasn't particularly threatening and went back to poking the figure on the sand.  
Alan continued his approach and when he reached the horse, bent to inspect the woman at it's hooves. The first thing he noticed is that she wasn't nearly as old as she had looked from a distance, the silver streaks in her hair had been misleading, by her face she couldn't have been any older then he was. As he moved to check her injuries, her hazel eyes snapped open and she stared at him for a second, then she made a move that looked to him like she had been about to go for a weapon and then forcibly stopped herself. He held his hands out in the universal peace gesture and she seemed to relax, at which point she passed back out.

With the help of the horse, who seemed uncannily intelligent, Alan managed to get the woman to the keep, he was fairly certain they were being followed but he wasn't sure by what, he had out of the corner of his eye, noticed what appeared to be a large wolf like dog but when he turned to look at it it had been gone. He had taken time down at the beach to go through the saddle bags and to inspect the tack which the horse had tolerated with poor grace. what he had found was vaguely unsettling, the sword was well taken care of, of excellent make, and had clearly seen use. the tack was also of excellent quality, though the worse for it's dip in the ocean. The actual contents of the saddle beg had been the most worrisome, a book in a language unlike any he'd ever seen, and badges of rank, that if her people indicated such things as his did marked her as very high ranking indeed. There had also been several uniforms, all white, a quiver of white arrows, the bow was no where to be seen, and a lot of knives, there were more knives hidden about her person, and scars on her hands that indicated to him that she knew how to use them.  
The sooner he got her to a healer and they got her woken up the better. 

Haran was not a happy companion, Fynius was following them at a distance, but if this strange man turned into a threat, he would have to save Lyra on his own, and that was growing less and less possible, as he was now in a stable being cared for by some rather competent grooms, and she had been taken into the main building. No Haran was not a happy at all.

Far away on the other side of the ocean a young man bolted up right in his bed, something was wrong, very wrong. He reached instinctively for his twin but only received the silence of distance. Still he knew what ever was wrong it had to do with her. Kris threw off his blankets and went to speak with his mother, this was the third time this week he'd had a nightmare. The first had been a storm, the second a dream of being lost a sea far from land, and this one had been vague, but unsettling, he was going to ask his mother to send another emissary, and to start the hunt for Lyra.


End file.
